14.02.2009

This week is a very special week. As of Valentine’s Day this week, Liam and I will have been together for 11 years. I know of a few people who absolutely HATE Valentine’s Day, and I kind of agree that it’s a massive marketing ploy to sell extra flowers, booze and chocolates after the post Christmas slump. Despite that, we still celebrate it. Valentine’s Day for us isn’t just a dumbass novelty holiday, it’s also our anniversary. While technically our main anniversary now is October, for the majority of time we’ve been together it’s been Valentine’s Day. So, I thought in celebration of what will be our 11 year anniversary this week, I thought I’d do a little reminiscing…

Towards the end of 2008, when we all started sixth form, everyone’s friendship groups kind of split into even more friendship groups. Two of my friends moved into a new group and with their teasing that someone in this new group liked me, I moved into it too. After a few weeks of hanging out as a large group, there was a fair bit of flirting from his part, but as I looked like this, I was a bit too chicken to do anything:

TEEFS

The Valentine’s Ball

Anyway, one of my friends, Beth, was going on a school trip to Honduras, and because it was a huge trip, the group going had to do a whole bunch of fundraising stuff. One of which, was the Valentine’s Ball. We all decided to go and make a night of it, and after some awkward AF discussion over MSN Messenger (RIP), Liam suggested that we be each other’s date for the evening. With that, I begged my Mum to order me a dress from one of her million catalogues and spent my EMA money on a new haircut. I was nervous as hell, but thankfully it was all quite chilled with a fair bit of banter going on.

The ball was in the main hall of our school, and there was a 3 course meal, a raffle and a band, so there was quite a bit to keep everyone busy. Overall it was a fab night! I was impressing the table with my knowledge of naming the 80s music the DJ kept playing, but generally between Liam and I, it was rather awkward. He won me some chocolates in the raffle, and towards the end of the night we ended up awkwardly slow dancing to some cheesy 80s song. Okay it was Waiting for a Star to Fall by Boy Meets Girl. As the song finished I tried to run off but he stopped me and asked if I wanted to be his girlfriend. I said yes, obvs.

It generally took months to get over the general awkwardness, but soon enough we were planning on going to university and moving in together. We picked the same five choices and when we finally got offers we both picked the University of Northampton. I won’t go into too much detail, as it involved a lot of crying anxiety fuelled meltdowns (I probably don’t need to tell you which one of us it was…) but looking back, it all fell into place fairly easily. We moved into our first flat together in Northampton in September 2010.

Moving In, Getting Engaged & Baby Floofs

A few months later we were back home for Christmas, where on Christmas Eve, after watching a few episodes of Peep Show, he popped the question and we got engaged! It was weird going back to uni at 19 with an engagement ring, but you know, YOLO and all that. In terms of setting a date, we agreed quite easily that it was best to finish uni and decide where we were going to live first.

In June 2013, we finally moved back to Wiltshire, renting a house not too far from our families, and the university chapter of things was closed in July when we graduated, me with a 2:1 in Psychology, and him with a first in Computer Science & Engineering. We soon settled into our jobs, and in November we brought home our beautiful baby girl: Tilly.

Getting Married

Nothing was really said about our wedding until later in 2014, where we decided to start looking at venues to see what was out there. Before you knew it, we’d set a date for the 10th October 2015 at Wyck HIll House in Stow-on-the-Wold. As you’ll know, the end of 2014 and most of 2015 was bloody nightmare for me mental health wise, but in spite of all that, we had the best day ever on the 10th October.

Our wedding day was the most amazing day and it was full of laughs and some wonderful memories with our friends and family. I genuinely wish we could go back and do it all again. We spent a night at Barnsley House in the Cotswolds a few days later as a sort of honeymoon (I was still too scared to get on a plane at this point) and it was literally the dreamiest hotel I’ve ever stayed in!

Skipping ahead to 2019, and we celebrated our ten year anniversary. While after we got married, we decided our main anniversary would be in October now that our wedding had replaced it. However, given that 2019 marked ten years together, I didn’t want it to go unnoticed! We didn’t do anything too extravagant, but we had a lovely dinner at Clayton’s Kitchen in Bath and Liam marked the occasion with this BEAUT of a ring. The colours match our colour scheme from our wedding!

Tilly wasn’t impressed that she didn’t get any roses…

Finally, that brings us up to now. This week, we’ll be celebrating 11 years together! I genuinely can’t believe how quickly the time has gone. In those 11 years there have been some ridiculously tough times, mainly due to me and my fucked up brain, but overall we’ve made some incredible memories and we’ve had endless laughs.

I don’t want to get mushy, so instead I’ll quote Mark from Peep Show:

“Should I be hounded to the ends of the Earth just for liking you? I like you, and if you can’t handle it you can just…you know…fuck off.”

Ah, this is SUCH a lovely story, how amazing that you’re teenage sweethearts, that’s wonderful. I think you know when you find the one, don’t you? I’ve been with my husband for over 25 years and I just knew as soon as I laid eyes on him, although he took a little more convincing, haha! Happy Valentines Day, hope you both have a wonderful day! 🙂

Awww oh my gosh, I freaking loved this post so much. It’s always so heartwarming to hear other people’s stories. ♡ That’s crazy how absolutely everything fell into place for you guys. Getting engaged at 19 is just so romantic, in my opinion! I love that the ring he got you matched the color scheme of your wedding. How thoughtful!!